The people of Sealsea Island called the coins “faerie gold” and told stories of treasure hoards of priceless coins and the dark horsemen who guarded them, who would strike a thief blind and seal his eyelids with molten silver, but everyone knew they were just sea wrack: washed in and out by the sea, found in waterside mud, and valueless.

“Why would his lordship take Rob into service?” Ned asked as Alinor spat on the little coin and polished it on the hem of her gown, held it up to the setting sun and tried to decipher the blurred image. “Why pay him so well?”

“This looks like a lion,” she said, admiring the little token. “It really does. Do you think it’s a coin from old England?”

“Aye, perhaps. But why Rob?”

“Why not?” she demanded. “Don’t you remember when I cured Master Walter of his croup last May? Rob came with me then. He picked the herbs from their garden and helped me in their stillroom. We’ve been there a few times since the death of her ladyship. We’re going back tomorrow to harvest their herbs and dry them. Mr. Tudeley said it was to help us since the disappearance of Zachary.”

“They could have helped before. He’s been gone more than six months.”

She shrugged. “They don’t count the days like us.”

“They don’t count anything,” he said resentfully.

“I know, but if Rob can earn good money and get an education at the same time then perhaps he can do better than his father. Maybe he can get away from here, perhaps even to Chichester.”

“If they don’t lead him into sin. Sir William was for the king, not for parliament. He might have surrendered and begged for pardon but he doesn’t serve in the new parliament, and he’s not mustered for the New Model Army. By rights, he should be calling up his men and marching north against the Scots. If he ever meant his promise to parliament, this is his chance to prove it. But I doubt it’s a godly household.”

Alinor glanced sideways at her brother, at his shock of thick brown hair and his stocky shoulders. He was bitter at being called away from the army just as they were winning, forced to come back to pull the ferry over a muddy rife, when he had got away from the island and thought that the world was changing forever and that he was part of that change.

“You’ll always guide Rob,” she assured him. “He won’t forget your teachings. He knows where he comes from, and what we believe.”

“What d’you believe?” he challenged her. “I don’t know what you believe.”

Her gaze slid away from him. “Ah, I’m like our mother and grandmother, Ned. I don’t always understand; but sometimes I feel . . .”

“He’ll never be an army man,” he said regretfully. “He’ll never serve under Cromwell. He’s missed his chance at that. And now you’re putting him into service to a cavalier lord . . .”